Anxiety Counseling

Do you lie awake at night unable to stop racing thoughts? Are you unable to stop worrying? Do you feel persistently nervous or uncomfortable? In heightened situations, does your heart race, do your palms sweat or do you have difficulty breathing?

Living with anxiety can be a painful, limiting, frustrating and sometimes even frightening experience. You may be experiencing an increase in heart rate, causing your body to be in extended periods of fight or flight mode. Maybe you feel constantly worried or consumed with stress and dread. Your sleeping and eating patterns may be deregulated or you might find it difficult to concentrate and complete everyday tasks. Some people are prone to anxiety, while others experience heightened anxiety during or following a trauma or major life transition.

Anxiety Affects Many People in Many Different Ways

Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults (roughly 18 percent of the U.S. population), according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. With our increasingly stressful lives, the isolation of online communication and global problems such as environmental and economic collapse, anxiety is on the rise. Many people alleviate anxious discomfort by avoiding situations or people that trigger agony. However, avoidance tactics can become habitual and make things worse. Chronic isolation can negatively impact your ability to complete everyday tasks, leave your home, sustain healthy relationships and maintain a positive sense of self-worth. While it’s common for many people to experience stress and worrisome thoughts, anxiety becomes a problem when it affects your ability to function normally. If anxiety is causing persistent problems in your life, such as poor sleep, racing thoughts, feeling consistently on edge or in panic, seeking anxiety treatment may be critical to your wellbeing.

Anxiety Treatment Can Help You Create Positive Change

With a solid therapy plan and the guidance of a licensed psychologist, relief from anxiety is possible. In confidential, safe and nonjudgmental anxiety treatment sessions, I can help you learn and practice methods to help you manage moments when your anxiety is triggered either internally or externally. Together, we can identify, explore and address the thoughts that create your anxiety cycles, identify where the anxiety comes from and what spins it out of control. Once we better understand your anxiety triggers, we can develop techniques to decrease anxiety as it’s happening. These realistic and useful practices can help you regulate symptoms and take back control of your life.

My practice is problem oriented and solution focused. I practice cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT), a goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment that takes a hands-on, practical approach to problem-solving. Using CBT, I can also help you identify any negative thinking patterns and shift into more positive and realistic ways of thinking. In session, we can explore your worldview, how you think about yourself and work toward changing patterns of thoughts or behaviors that keep you stuck. And, I can provide you with effective tips and techniques that can help to keep you calm and ground when heightened anxiety begins to get triggered.

With help, support and the right anxiety treatment approach, it is very possible to manage and even overcome anxiety. I can help you identify and address the thoughts and situations that are contributing to your anxiety. In a safe, supportive and nonjudgmental environment, you can work through difficult emotions and learn ways to gain more control over your thoughts and your life. In our counseling sessions, you can also develop more self-awareness, breathing techniques and other cognitive stress reduction strategies to reduce anxiety and tension. As you develop more mindfulness, you can also begin to identify, examine and address any self-limiting behaviors or negative self-beliefs that keep you from coping effectively. With help, it is possible to shift your perception of yourself and begin to feel more positive and in control.

But, you may still have questions or concerns about anxiety treatment…

I fear that if I seek help my anxiety will get worse…

Talking about issues that cause anxiety can be very difficult. I understand that bringing up these situations may feel shameful. But, sometimes you have to walk through the fire to get to the other side. If these issues or feelings never surface, they are never going to get better.

I will be honest—in some situations, total elimination of anxiety is not possible. With that being said, our sessions can help you decrease your anxiety by practicing the tools I will provide you to cope in situations that trigger an anxious response. Although your anxiety may never fully dissipate, we can figure out ways to manage it so that you’re comfortable. Healing habitual behavior is a process that requires a lot of work, but together we can begin to understand what coping mechanisms work and don’t work for you. Understanding methods that help lesson and, sometimes, alleviate your symptoms is the focus of my anxiety treatment.

I have heard that anxiety treatment can be expensive…

I would like to invite you to consider how anxiety impacts your life. Anxiety treatment can help you decrease or overcome an illness that affects your everyday wellbeing. If you went to the doctor and your doctor diagnosed you with cancer, would you choose to treat or ignore it? When you are considering the severity of your anxiety and how it affects your everyday function, I encourage you to think about your anxiety as a health threat as serious as cancer. Patients that are willing to do the work typically see success in decreasing or overcoming their symptoms. With my guidance, we can develop tools that will help alleviate triggers as they’re happening.
I feel embarrassed about receiving anxiety treatment. I am an adult and shouldn’t need behavioral counseling.
There is no shame in experiencing anxiety. About 18 percent of the adult population struggles everyday with anxiety. In therapy, we’ll work together to figure out how your anxiety started, how long it has persisted and how to practice dealing with it in real-time. If you’re willing to take the initial step to seek anxiety treatment and work our program every day, you will likely see symptom relief. Although it can be challenging and uncomfortable to work through your issues, trying to repress thoughts and feelings will not make them go away. In fact, trying to ignore painful thoughts and feelings can heighten anxiety. In order to alleviate the anxiety cycle, you need to understand your anxiety, how it impacts your body and what is triggering it. In therapy, you will be provided with a safe, nonjudgmental space to identify and address triggers and stressors, develop effective coping strategies and become more mindful about how you approach life.

Take Back Control of Your Life
I invite you to call (520) 326-5761 or email me at ssticken@live.com. I’m happy to discuss your specific needs, discuss anxiety treatment and answer any questions you have about my practice.